Gloucester-Hartpury 'know how to win' semi-finals
Gloucester-Hartpury know the challenge they are up against when they face West Country rivals Bristol Bears on Sunday for a place in the Premiership Women's Rugby (PWR) final. The Bears were the last team to beat the two-time league champions, in a match that also took place on their own turf at Kingsholm in November - rebranded to Queensholm for this weekend's semi-final. Since that 19-14 defeat Gloucester-Hartpury have not looked back, winning their past nine games to storm into the league play-offs."Everybody talks about what you learn from your losses and we learned a lot from our loss that day," head of women's rugby Sean Lynn told BBC Radio Gloucestershire."Everything seems to be going in the right steps [since]. Friday night against Harlequins was really positive. Sport's all about momentum and, hopefully, we can take that momentum from Friday into Sunday."Gloucester-Hartpury are aiming to become the first team to win the PWR title three times consecutively. They finished the regular season at the top of the table for a third straight campaign, with the loss to the Bears before Christmas only their sixth defeat in 54 league matches since the start of 2022-23 season.The hunger for a third title is what has been driving the team, according to prop Maud Muir."We've experienced it, we know how to win, especially when our backs are against the wall, so I think having those two previous years is so important," the England international said. "We know how to win and that's so important and that's what you need to do in knockout rugby, is win."
No matter the result, Sunday's match will be the last time Lynn takes charge of the team at home before he leaves the club next month to become the new Wales women head coach. Lynn has been the driving force behind Gloucester-Hartpury's transformation into the dominant team in English women's rugby, having taken charge of the entire women's set-up at the club in 2019. "It's been a great journey, I've really enjoyed it and when I first took the reins at Gloucester-Hartpury it was all about making sure that we can get the pathway right, making sure that everyone coming through the pathway wants to play for Gloucester-Hartpury," Lynn said."We wanted to make Gloucester-Hartpury a very special team and by doing that we've gone back-to-back [titles] and Kingsholm has been turned to Queensholm."However, the Welshman said the focus will not be on him on Sunday. "I've not spoken about it, I'm not going to be speaking about it, it's just that 80 minutes of cup rugby, a semi-final, getting excited."Driving into the gates it'll be very emotional at times, but it's all about what we do in that 80 minutes."
Co-captain Zoe Aldcroft credits Lynn with changing the culture at the club."The energy that he brings, the passion that he has for this side, and the culture that he has built here at Gloucester-Hartpury has been one of the main reasons why we have been successful here, and he's just been unbelievable for us," she said.Muir added: "I didn't ever have a blip in not loving rugby but he's reignited that in me, I didn't know I could love rugby more."He's really easy going, he makes it fun - you can have fun playing rugby and that's when we do the best in our games, when we're having fun."
Gloucester-Hartpury came out on top against Bristol last June when the two sides met in the PWR final and the defending champions are expecting the Bears to want to avenge that defeat when they meet again."We are not taking this game lightly at all," Lynn said."Hopefully, we can get a real good crowd backing us because that's what we want is making sure these girls feel special."
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